Nurture Plus Nature

        Raegan Robb
        Psych101
        Dec.9th 1996

The classic debated topic of nurture versus nature has been, and always
will be an argumentative subject in the scientific world. Some psychologists and
scientists share the view that our behavioral aspects originate only from the
environmental factors of our upbringing. While other opposing specialists argue
the outlook in science that agrees with the naturalist idea. This concept of
naturalistic ideas supports the hereditary genetic framework, inherited from our
parents, is the sole determining factor in our behavioral characteristics. These
two opposing viewpoints have produced a multitude of ideas, theories, and
arguments in the history of psychology.
John Broadus Watson, the father of American behaviorism, greatly
reinforced the source of nurture by studying learned and adaptive behavior
patterns in our environmental surroundings (Rathus p.13). During this same time
of revolutionary ideas in psychology, American psychologist, Arnold Gesell
supported the opposite views of Watson. Gesell theorized that "physical and
motor growth and development is monitored and regulated by an automatic natural
process"(Rathus p.13). Each of these ideas has persisted strongly in the world
of psychology from the nineteenth century on into the twentieth, but now a new
and united psychology world acknowledges both theories equally. It is imagined,
today, that the explanation of our behavioral characteristics originates from
both our heredity, and the environment in which we were raised.
This report supports the theory that both aspects of nurture, with the
addition of nature are involved in and explain our complete behaviors. Many
studies and experiments have been conducted in recent years of psychology to
give this combined idea its appealing thesis. A great deal of research and
experimentation has been conducted in order to solve the puzzling results that
derive from situational differences in...